The
iFACE system is used in a distributed collaborative environment, which was
demonstrated in Army Research Lab
Symposium 2001.
In this distributed collaborative environment, users are under different types
conditions and use heterogeneous hardware platforms. The
collaborators are connected via wireless networks. Remote participants are
represented as avatars in the system. The faces of the avatars are driven by
speech. There
are personnel in the central base who are in charge of processing information
from field personnel, reasoning and planning. They use desktop PCs and see
through head mounted displays. The field personnel are mobile
units. They are responsible for providing latest field information and executing
plans. They use a vehicle based mobile computing station called MIC3E, which
is built by Sytronics Inc.
MIC3E has space for two persons. It is equipped with two Pentium III 500MHz PCs
with 128MB memory, running Windows NT 4.0. MIC3E have three displays that
include a Pioneer 50" main screen and two 17" desk screens. The users
can switch the materials being displayed to any of the three screens. Two video
cameras are mounted on MIC3E. One of them is used to monitor the activities
happening inside MIC3E and is used to track the head movement of the user. The
other one is used to monitor what is happening outside of MIC3E. Other mobile
individuals are equipped with lightweight portable devices such as laptops.
